(In 2007 a full page ad cost $104,000--the ads for Hello Dolly, The Front Page and The Glass Menagerie are double pages--wonder what they cost today!)

After living more than half of my life in Florida I miss New York City only one day of the year and that is when the New York Times Sunday edition comes out with their “The New Season”, this year in 5 part sections covering the theatre, television, art, dancing, video games, music and film. This past Sunday---thanks Bob & Christine—I got the paper and just laid it out on my table and seeing Bette Midler going to open in Jerry Herman’s rival of the musical “Hello Dolly”, Nathan Lane in BenHecht and Charles MacArthur’s classic comedy “The Front Page”, Sally Field starring as Amanda in Tennessee Williams’ memory play drama “The Glass Menagerie” plus in other shows CateBlanchett, Mary-Louise Parker, Liev Schreiber not to forget revivals of “Falsettos” and a new musical version of  Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory just to mention a few ‘happenings’.

It took me back 70 years ago as a kid and as a teenager and a young adult in my 20s and 30s. I could talk for hours, days and, yes, even years about seeing my first show “Oklahoma” (1944?) and my parents taking me to see the original “Death of a Salesman” (1949), “Come Back Little Sheba” (1950), going on my own to see Marlon Brando in “A Streetcar Named Desire” when I was 11 and in my teens seeing Ethel Merman, Mary Martin and all the STARS on Broadway, the prize winning playwrights, the best musicals and dramas and when I was living in Memphis in the 70s going up to New York and seeing 10 shows in a week every year and the two performances I will never ever forget: the first time I saw “A Chorus Line” at the Shubert theatre in 1976 and then at the same theatre 7 years later when it became the longest running show on Broadway with in-between, and after, becoming a “ACL” groupie seeing the show all over the USA for a total of 101 times.

I just look at the front page of the NY Times Arts & Leisure and I am flooded with 72 years of good memories, even of the few bad shows, including the two I walked out on, and as I type this I am thinking of the next trip I will take to New York in 2025 as I am sure there will be a 50^thanniversary of “A Chorus Line”!

And now I wait patiently for the start of the Broadway Across America touring shows starting on October 7 with the 20^th anniversary revival of “Rent” on its national tour!